


In The End We Start Again

by raendown



Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 Drabbles [49]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 12:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21356524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: After his death Izuna spends the rest of time in the afterlife, a mirror of the world he lived in before. He is far from alone.
Relationships: Nohara Rin/Uchiha Izuna
Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 Drabbles [49]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533161
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	In The End We Start Again

In some ways Izuna liked the mirror better than reality, all the obvious parts like having his brothers alive for all eternity and never having to worry about his own physical safety again. Why should he worry about dying when he was already dead? Other parts of this world he wasn’t so fond of such as the fact that it indeed made a perfect mirror and that meant Senju Tobirama was still doomed to be a part of his existence in some way. If he’d had his choice Izuna would have erased that stuck up snow queen from the face of the planet and made everyone’s lives much better.

Then there were the parts he never expected and those too were rather hit or miss in his eyes but the one part he liked best about the mirror world, life after death, was the chance to meet new people from other generations he would never have been able to meet in his limited years on earth. Izuna picked his way through the trees with careful steps more out of habit than from any real need to remain silent. He could already feel the presence of his favorite soul nearby, bright and sunny around a core of dark resilience that had drawn his attention immediately the moment they met in this very clearing.

Rin died when she was a young girl of only twelve years old but here in the afterlife she had chosen to age as many in her situation did. Even now a decade or so later she sometimes took a moment when she thought herself unobserved to admire the shape of her womanly form, twisting from side to side with approving eyes for her own reflection. Izuna rather approved too.

“Do you think it’s morbid that this is your favorite place to hang out?” he asked, stepping in to the clearing with the same relief that always came with returning to her side. Rin stretched where she was lounging on an oblong rock.

“Probably. I like the irony of it.” She sat up to trace her toes in the spot where only she would ever see the echoing memory of blood. “I died right here. The worst possible memory of my time in the other world. But I also met you here, my favorite new memory of this place. It’s like it was meant to be, you know?”

“Huh, don’t go talking fate bullshit to me. I get enough of that from my oldest brother.”

Izuna flopped gracelessly down in the dirt where her eyes saw such dark memories, filling that space with himself instead. She smiled at him when he dropped his head in her lap without asking.

“When I saw you for the first time it was like…meeting an old friend. Someone would think we knew each other already.” She frowned as she tried to find the words.

“It was like coming home,” he finished for her quietly.

Rin blinked in surprise and then smiled, a slow dawning expression with just a hint of teeth, his favorite look on her. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Meeting you was like coming home to where I was always meant to be.”

She snickered when he groaned about the cheesiness of that sentiment, making it up to him by tugging the elastic out of his ponytail to run her fingers through his hair. This world may be created as a mirror to the one they had travelled in their first life and he was glad of that for many reasons but he would forever be most grateful for the chance to meet the woman who made eternity so bearable.


End file.
